Cerro Paranal is a mountain in the Atacama Desert of northern

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

and is the home of the

Paranal Observatory Paranal Observatory is an astronomical observatory operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). It is located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile on Cerro Paranal at altitude, south of Antofagasta. By total light-collecting area, it ...

. Prior to the construction of the observatory, the summit was a horizontal control point with an elevation of ; now it is above sea level. It is the site of the

Very Large Telescope The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a telescope facility operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each with a primary mirror 8.2 m across, ...

and the

VLT Survey Telescope The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) is a telescope located at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is housed in an enclosure immediately adjacent to the four Very Large Telescope (VLT) Unit Telescopes on the summit o ...

. It is located south of Antofagasta and north of Taltal, as well as inland and west of highway B-710.

Gallery

Up high Cerro Paranal.jpg, Milky Way pictured above Cerro Paranal. Zodiacal Light Seen from Paranal.jpg,

Zodiacal Light The zodiacal light (also called false dawn when seen before sunrise) is a faint glow of diffuse sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust. Brighter around the Sun, it appears in a particularly dark night sky to extend from the Sun's direction in ...

seen from Paranal.

References

External links

Cerro Paranal
Paranal Paranal {{Antofagasta-geo-stub